Maya Erskine is moving behind the camera for the first time in features, signing on to direct an untitled teen comedy for A24 in a project produced by Emma Stone, Dave McCary and Ali Herting through Fruit Tree. The film, written by Morgan Lehmann, gives Erskine a directing debut at a moment when her profile in film and television is rising fast after Mr. & Mrs. Smith and the earlier success of PEN15.
The project itself has been in circulation for a year. In April 2025, A24 acquired Lehmann’s spec script after a competitive bidding process, with Ley Line Entertainment joining Fruit Tree as producer and co-financier. Trade reports at the time described the film as a raunchy teen comedy centered on a teenage virgin who secretly writes erotic fan fiction online, a premise that taps a corner of youth culture Hollywood has been revisiting after years of leaning harder on franchise fare. In a June 2025 interview, Lehmann said the idea grew out of discovering that many erotic fan-fiction writers were still in high school, and argued that romance stories were in a commercial upswing.
Erskine’s move into directing tracks with the way she has built her career. On PEN15, she served as co-creator, co-writer and executive producer, earning Emmy nominations for writing and for the series itself. In later interviews, she described how working as a writer sharpened her sense of story structure and scene specificity, while collaborators on Mr. & Mrs. Smith continued to treat her as a creative partner even when she was focused on acting. That mix of performance and authorship makes this step feel less like a surprise career pivot than a formal expansion of work she has already been doing for years.
The timing matters. News of the film broke a day after reports that Erskine would executive produce the second season of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, tying her to a new phase of that series while she takes on a feature directing assignment for one of the busiest indie studios in the market. No cast, production start date or release window has been announced. What is clear is that A24 and Fruit Tree are betting that Erskine can bring the same sharp comic perspective that made PEN15 stand out to a movie built around teenage fantasy, embarrassment and desire.
